Elisabeth Easther talks to photographer and tour guide Richard Young.
My dad was a forester on a big country estate in Sussex, so
I grew up surrounded by nature and wildlife like deer, foxes and badgers. We'd spend a lot of time exploring the woodlands, walking, fishing, shooting and running around. The year I left school, I really started getting into my photography so Dad bought me a good camera and I started capturing landscapes and wildlife. When Dad emigrated to New Zealand in 2004, I came to visit and I fell in love with the outdoors, the tramping and the mountaineering.
Outside New Zealand, my favourite place to travel is Africa. I spent three months travelling overland from Nairobi to Cape Town and it was such an adventure. One night we were camping in a big game park and I woke up to go to the toilet. I got out of my tent and was standing in the dark nearly face to face with a huge bull elephant. I just had to walk carefully backwards to my tent.
Another night a hippo ran into our camp. It was charging around and even the guides were getting worried, pulling sticks out of the fire to defend themselves if they had to — but eventually it took itself off.
One morning in Botswana, I was in the Okavango Delta on a dugout canoe cruise and I convinced a guide to take me out before dawn, so I could catch the sunrise. He wasn't that keen but I managed to convince him with the offer of a large tip but it wasn't till we were poling back to our camp that I realised how dangerous it was. There were hippos and crocodiles and passing them in the dark probably wasn't the best thing to do — but I did get some really good shots. Another time, I was rhino-tracking on foot and I ended up just metres away from some white rhinos. I was hiding behind a bush and I was so scared I could barely use my camera.